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The Animatrix: The Second Renaissance, Part 2 (2003)

Synopsis
by Cammila Collar

Part 2 of the Second Renaissance segment of the Animatrix opens with the human UN launching a nuclear carpet-bombing on Zero One. The machines are relatively unaffected by the blast, retaliating by sending invading armies into human territories, triggering a full-on World War. Human forces are no match for the machines relentlessness, and in an act of desperation, military leaders call for Operation Dark Storm, releasing a sky darkening cloud of nanomachines into the air, blackening the sky and cutting the machines off from their primary power source. Dark Storm also disables most of the humans' long-range weapons however, and soon the machines phase out the humanoid forms that they had been using, and opt for the squid like Sentinels that appear in the Matrix films - polarizing the machine collective even further from the distant humanness that models based on the original designs of man once retained. The human forces soon become completely defenseless, forcing leaders to meet in New York to sign an armistice with the machines. The machine representative utters the words "Your flesh is a relic, a mere vessel. Hand over your flesh and a new world awaits you. We demand it," before detonating a nuclear bomb at the proceedings, killing all the world's remaining leaders and destroying the last remaining human city. Having achieved victory over the decimated Earth, the machines then begin utilizing the remaining humans as a power source, placing them in an unconscious dream state that becomes the first version of the Matrix.